Ward councillors are advocates for their constituents. The proposed library closure programme is for four out of a list of five.1 Two libraries are in HRA wards and HRA are proposing the closures. This means that two wards have councillors who are conflicted. The conflict is that they must support their ward and support their party. This is a quintessential political decision. All five councillors have substantial allowances, which might be factor in their decision-making.
Elm Park: HRA stronghold
Barry Mugglestone is the Environment Tsar. His greatest victory is 30-minutes free car parking – except in Romford.2 It costs a million pounds and would save all the libraries if abandoned.
Stephanie Nunn is the former mayor.
Julie Wilkes is chair of the Audit Committee with a substantial allowance. There are four meetings a year. The 23rd January, 2024 meeting lasted an hour.3
South Hornchurch: HRA stronghold
Natasha Summers was suddenly promoted to the £25,000 Housing Needs cabinet post.4 South Hornchurch is Havering’s third most deprived ward (see Addendum 1) and residents have poor outcomes. The library is important for Levelling-up.
Graham Williamson is the Planning Tsar. He sees libraries sitting on sites which are ready for housing development. Graham lives in Elm Park, which is also facing library closures.
Political Management
Ray Morgon’s HRA are specialists in the management of decline. This will continue until they grasp the Council Tax nettle (see Addendum 2). Graham Williamson says, “We can only hope”5 for additional government funding. He means increased Council Taxes are inevitable, but HRA would implode under the political pressure.
Addendum One: Deprivation
“Gooshays, Heaton, and South Hornchurch are the most deprived wards in Havering. On average, people living in deprived areas, lower socio-economic groups and marginalised groups have the poorest health and well-being outcomes. In the most deprived areas, the life expectancy of men is 7.9 years lower than that of men in the least deprived areas; for women the difference is 5.5years.” Source: Social Value strategy – Cabinet Sept 2019.pdf (havering.gov.uk)
Addendum Two: Bankruptcy
“…a funding gap facing local services of more than £6 billion over the next two years – fuelled by rising cost and demand pressures – means a chasm will continue to grow….”
Two-thirds of councils have already had to make cutbacks to local neighbourhood services this year – including waste collections, road repairs, library and leisure services – as they struggle to plug funding gaps.” Source: English councils face terrifying £6.2bn funding black hole with more at risk of bankruptcy (msn.com)
Notes
1 Collier Row, Elm Park, Gidea Park, Harold Wood and South Hornchurch
2 Romford didn’t vote HRA but four Conservatives have joined them – without by-elections
3 Browse meetings – Audit Committee | The London Borough Of Havering
4 Havering Councillor: Natasha Summers (South Hornchurch) – Politics in Havering Her attendance is poor at about 62%. This bodes badly for her principal decision-making role. Councillors attendance summary, 14 December 2023 – 7 June 2024 | The London Borough Of Havering
Politics in Havering 
Dear Chris,
I do believe I played a leading role in persuading HRA to maintain 30 minutes free parking in Hornchurch and Upminster shopping centres after I delivered thousands of leaflets supporting free parking and highlighting this as an HRA election promise, albeit HRA now only allow one free period a day.
I presume you are in favour of only abolishing the free period in Hornchurch and Upminster shopping centres or do you mean abolish all 30 minutes free parking (and presumably all free parking) throughout Havering?
The 30 minutes free parking was never introduced into the Romford main shopping centre as the 30 minutes is for convenience buying not a proper shop and in Romford would not allow time to shop so was always impractical to introduce there.
I recall 30 minutes free parking being introduced (under government orders) and witnessed Cllr Ramsey rolling his eyes at the prospect of lost revenue, except in practice the 20p hour charge was abolished, 30 free minutes free introduced and the charge for the first hour raised to one pound.
This raised council parking income by over one million pounds, but survived politically (after all the initial controversy about introducing a 20p charge) as it seemed a fair compromise.
However the reason for writing all this is to show why you make a fundamental mistake about the cost (lost income) from free parking. The opposite is the case as free parking raises income by allowing other charges to be raised. These rises are unpopular but unless raised too high are still viewed as fair due to the free period.
Damian’s mistake (I won’t discuss personality disorders) was to raise parking charges and abolish the free period, a double whammy that just offended common decency/fairness.
The HRA have not repeated his mistake, but even retaining the period provides little comfort as they have now raised parking charges to the highest in East London and Essex, which are too high and I suspect will result in reduced income.
But then again if the Cabinet were following officer’s advice perhaps this was done on purpose to build the case for selling under-used car parks for housing which will break another election promise to op[pose overdevelopment and support our community shopping centres and local shops.
Regards
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My principal point wasn’t the 30 minutes free parking. I was actually pointing out that library closures are a political choice and that HRA have chosen to prioritise car parking fees. Additionally I felt it was entirely mendacious to not include the fact of probable capital sales from the redundant library sites and that is the entire point of the closures. They need the receipts to avoid (postpone?) drawdown on the £54M. The revenue savings are trivial in comparison to the receipts that will accrue. I regard the entire *consultation* as a sleight of hand. The tone suggests that there is an imperative underpinning the library closures: There isn’t.
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Chris you are too generous as I think HRA are prioritising their allowances rather than parking charges over library closures and this is because the HRA was created to secure certain councillors the trappings of office rather than an independent ability to run the council on behalf of residents.
As soon as they were in we heard the refrain “after a closer look at the books” we can’t honour our election promises due to poor government funding, as if this wasn’t known before election promises were made.
Surely, if you can’t honour election promises you should resign or take the necessary action to secure improved funding.
So you are right they do have choices. They can take legal action under the 2010 Equality Act and anti-discrimination legislation and/or force the issue by calling in government administrators to conduct a proper audit of council finances.
Both officers and councillors are loath to do so because they could lose their allowances/wages and any audit could reveal malpractice and fraud and so they both prioritise the sale of council assets over serving the residents.
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I don’t think that HRA are as obsessed with allowances as the previous administration.
In a democracy it is always better for local councillors to take responsibility. Calling in Commissioners (which is very expensive) is a very last resort.
Their is no evidence of fraud or malpractice.
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Not as obsessed as the previous regime, is still obsessed unless you’re saying not obsessed at all. I presume you think Paul resigned from Labour due to Labour party policy?
This will apply to senior positions whereas most of the backbenchers are content to sit back and supplement the pension hence the reduction of committees to show a reduction in allowances overall from previous regime (still over £1 million), which otherwise wouldn’t make sense e.g. abolition of the highways committee.
Of course in a democracy it’s better to have elected politicians in charge, but this must involve the politicians acting as leaders and taking the action needed to end historic under-funding or otherwise they’re in charge in name only and not serving the public – and sometimes as with any strike-action can involve hardship.
You say “there is no evidence of fraud or malpractice”. That’s encouraging!!!
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Allowances are a tedious subject.
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“Allowances are a tedious subject”.
Indeed, but allowances paid as a wage irrespective of attendance or workload was introduced by Blair as the redundancy payments for local democracy.
Blair and successive governments centralised power away from local councils and used allowances to buy off dissent from councillors and MPS.
If the money had been introduced as part of democratic voting reform to strengthen local democracy and ensure viable and competing political parties then it would have merit, but the money without genuine reform just made a bad system worse.
This is why historic under-funding has gone unchallenged in any effective legal way.
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